I agree. Copyright reform is necessary. However abandoning copyright altogether is incredibly naive and foolish. If we were to abandon copyright completely (at least in today's society with nothing to replace it) we would be stifling creativity and killing progress of all kinds. I know I would NEVER think of releasing any work I wrote without some form of protection to assure that if I wished, I could profit from that endeavor (unless the work was designed to not be profited from). Why would an author work? By the way, we are not talking, as some have stated, about an hour of work one afternoon. The people who have stated that here are showing incredible ignorance. Any decent (and in many cases, even bad works) work takes a lot of time and hard work to produce. One does not simply sit down and bang out a work in an hour one afternoon. If it were that simple these people would ALL be doing it. Often we are talking about years of work. For instance, the book I am working on is the result of 19 years of experience with computers, years of research, and years of schooling, which have cost me a lot of money. Why would I pay tens of thousands of dollars in education only to produce works that anyone could copy and distribute as their own? The only ones that benefit from an hour of work one afternoon are the copyright violators who are stealing other peoples work.
Copyright reform is necessary. The current state of affairs is incredibly out of whack. However people also need to get a sense of perspective, and realize that many of the arguments on the other side are as unrealistic and as stupid as some of the arguments put forward by people who want copyright extended in perpetuity.
As with most arguments in this debate, the logic here is completely flawed. Yes, you can still see the Mona Lisa, but comparing one individual work of old art to an entire generation of artistic works is not logical. You talk about the tv shows of the 30s and 40s, and compare that to ONE work of art that has taken tremendous work to preserve. What you would need to compare is the entire generation of artwork for that period. Indeed, I think you will find that the overwhelming majority of paintings from this period are lost to history forever.
This is my problem with every counter copyright argument I have ever heard. The logic simply does not stand. People who argue against movies making 1 million less are talking about some specific instances, and are not taking into account works that make much less money. While I too think that the current state of copyright is messed up, I also think that getting rid of copyright is as stupid as stupid gets. The plain fact is that you WILL stifle creativity and the flow of information, and I have yet to see a good, logical argument that proves otherwise.
Not 100% sure about Fortran, but I do know there is good value to learning older languages. Take COBOL for instance. Anything you can do in COBOL can be done in more modern languages. The problem is that there is a LOT of COBOL out there. It works, and businesses have found that projects transferring all their old programs to newer languages ultimately fail more often than they succeed. It is much better for them to find a COBOL programmer than translate everything to a newer language.
It also opens up another avenue MS has wanted to go down, and that is yearly fees. They would rather have you buy the OS and then pay a fee every year for the right to use it. This patent will go a long way towards that goal. Sure, it is a crappy goal, and will hurt them and help systems like Linux, but MS will do what MS wants.
Hey, I have a student who takes advantage of this phenomenon. He goes to the recycling center once a month and grabs computers that people have thrown out. He can then often just swap out the bad part and he has a computer he can sell or use!
I read until I hit the part about Linux having a bad setup for security, laughed, and stopped reading. That was enough to let me know that this guy is clearly an idiot. Doesn't he realize that the reason so many people run into security problems in Xp is because they run as admin?
No viruses for Linux ONLY because of its low popularity? Umm, it is the number one web server, and it still maintains a good security reputation. It is the number one embedded OS, and it still maintains a good security reputation. It is run by companies like Google and Yahoo, and still maintains a good security rep.
Trust me, I should know. Linux is much more secure than Windows. Windows Vista is the only version of Windows that is reasonably secure, until you turn off the annoying warnings.
Your attitude is part of the problem. You justify breaking the law with a bunch of bull. It doesn't MATTER when the book was written, nor, would I doubt you would care if it was released yesterday, you would just come up with another excuse to legitimize a crime.
The fact is, he put his hard work into the book. He deserves to get paid by people who want it if that is what he desires. You don't want to pay? Simple, don't read the book! What you are saying is like saying you have the right to take stuff from a warehouse simply because the stuff has been there for ten years.
While I agree that copyright laws need to be reformed, I also agree that the author has the right to be paid, and the fact that you don't like the current law isn't an excuse to break it!
Hey, if you think the information on this subject must be free, put YOUR hard work into it, write a book, and distribute it for free. If we take your attitude towards authored works, we will greatly diminish the works available to us because authors and artists will no longer wish to put their hard work into a form we can readily obtain. In short, your actions hurt us all, just because you need to make excuses and resort to criminal behavior rather than pay a modest sum to gain the knowledge. I am currently working on a book. I want to be paid for it. It isn't easy writing a book (a good one at least), but I doubt you would know about that.
I thought by now we would have integration of TV and computer. They are very slow to change.
The programming doesn't suck. There is a lot of good stuff out there, and a HUGE variety. However the television companies are very hesitant to change. We have tons of bandwidth going to waste. There should be some form of integration of TV and internet. Why Comcast doesn't fully invest in things like Fancast, or create a similar site that collects TV and streams it, and gets the bandwidth out there to deliver it is beyond me. Comcast could KILL its competitors by combining the TV and Internet. Combine the two biggest time wasters into one convenient device. Turn your cable box into an entertainment computer.
Don't be so quick to blame the Unions, or the administrators. I can think of two reasons why it is so hard. I am an adjunct teacher at a community college. I really WANT to teach full time, but it is hard getting a job, especially with the budget cuts, but I see bad teachers all over the country as well.
The first reason is that the pay is crap, so who wants to teach? Most positions demand a Masters at least. I can make a lot more money in the government or private sector, twice as much in fact. The only reason to teach is because you WANT to. Most people today will choose the money.
The second reason is tenure. A school has only a few years to figure out if the teacher is any good and they can get rid of them. Now I like tenure, as it does provide teachers freedom from political and other agendas from interfering with their jobs, but if you get a bad teacher in there, they become very hard to remove if they just give up. And there IS burn out in jobs like this. Many teachers simply give up trying to teach students they perceive as not really caring, and especially in high schools they get a lot of pressure to just pass kids so the school doesn't look bad and lose funding.
I think if we would change our attitudes about schools and how we judge them, and paid teachers decent salaries, we will get better people in the field. Make it a place where people WANT to go, instead of a place where people have to decide between a love of teaching, and making a decent living.
Speaking as a member of a family who could be devastated by flu (two of us could easily be killed by flu and resulting pneumonia), I am pretty worried.
The United States keeps saying "Be concerned, but don't panic." They say it isn't prudent to close borders, schools, etc. To my thinking, isn't this a case of money trumping safety? Sure, there aren't a heck of a lot of cases yet, but I would think the prudent thing to do would be to isolate as many cases as possible, and try to keep this from spreading with every resource at our disposal! Yes, that means border closings. Get our citizens who want to come home back, but place them in isolation until we know they are not carrying.
When a case is reported in or near your community, close schools and any non vital business. Tell people to not travel anywhere that isn't necessary. Place sanitiser anywhere in public where multiple people are touching stuff. Distribute medical gloves and masks.
Some would say this is overreaction, but it is really the only way to stop this from becoming a pandemic. Serious issue, and we need to treat it as such, and not put the economy above the health of citizens. In Mexico it is hitting healthy people hard, and this should be a major concern. It is quite like the behavior of the last pandemic, although it isn't spreading as quickly.
We should be taking every step to stop this now before it gets so large that we can't stop it, or is this a case where we really can't stop it, so we aren't bothering?
I know, I am paranoid, but facing a pandemic flu is a very scary proposition for me and my family.
Those in security know that security is a balancing act. Increase security, and you decrease usability as well as increase the annoyance factor. Increase it too high, and users tend to bypass or disable security. Increase usability and decrease the annoyances and you decrease security.
Vista is indeed a pretty secure Operating System, when used properly. Unfortunately that same security also tends to be pretty annoying. The constant pop ups lead the vast majority of people to either start clicking without thinking, or leads them to turn off security features. Many of the students I teach that use Vista (and these are a very small percentage - Vista still hasn't caught on with the digital natives) have turned off many of the security features Vista offers.
So while Vista is indeed a fairly secure platform in theory, in practice it isn't, because the users disable the security. More secure than Linux? I can't say that, because I just don't know for sure. However, in the real world it isn't because of what users do to the system. Kind of like the Linux user who always runs as root.
I applaud MS for their attempt at making their operating systems more secure. I hope they aren't deluding themselves into thinking that they haven't made some serious mistakes as well. Right now if you have a security problem they can ask you if you have disabled features, and when the user says they have, MS can wash their hands of the situation. That is not true security. A good first step, but it definitely needs improvement. They still need to find the correct balance between usability and security.
The more they stay the same. Is it any wonder people do not trust their government anymore? Who is left inside government willing to fight for our rights? The answer appears to be: No one.
The problem is that MS continued to require bigger and badder hardware to run its new Operating SYstems. This worked well when the apps people used continued to require better hardware as well, but this is no longer the case. With so much done on the web now, and with apps not keeping pace with 64 BIT OS and multiple cores, people do not NEED better hardware in order to do their work, unless they are avid gamers.
Throw in a weak economy and you spell doom for an OS that requires better hardware. No one wants to upgrade their computer just to upgrade the OS, which does nothing for them.
MS took a step in the right direction with seven, as it states that it will run just as fine as Vista on the same hardware. Unfortunately the damage is already done. The computing world is stuck at XP, and don't need better hardware than that which will run XP fast and efficiently. Vista crawls on most of these systems, as seven will also likely do. MS needs to take a good hard look at what Linux does very well, and that is run on older hardware as well as the newer stuff. Lets stop throwing away perfectly good PCs and creating tons of EWaste just because MS says we need to have their new OS, which simply will not run well on your current machine. In the new world, where money is tight, and people are more conscious of waste, MS fails to recognise the shifting winds.
Since you are talking health care, you also need to be in compliance. That requires not only logging, but encryption. While I can not make specific recommendations (I believe there are some good ones here) I would make sure that you can make encryption an integral part of this system. That would help make sure you are in compliance without having to add extra steps later in the process. Just food for thought. Most of the open source alternatives you get should be able to work nicely with PgP. Since you want the system to be closed, I would recommend setting up and using your own key server.
Well, it really depends on the condition, doesn't it? I am pretty familiar with back pain, having one herniated and one blown disk in my back. This is extremely painful. I know that some procedures, for certain types of back pain, is just as likely to not help as it is to help and can sometimes make it worse.
However this is not always the case. Some procedures for certain conditions are showing to be VERY effective for those patients that can not get relief otherwise. That said, back surgery should be a last resort after trying the other remedies. Many back problems go away on their own, or with proper exercise, or medical treatment. However, sometimes it does not.
There are quite a few different types of surgery you can get, and some surgeons clearly seem to have a much better success rate than others. Minimally invasive surgeries also seem to, at the very least, decrease the risks of making things worse. I have two friends who had long term back pain, and who eventually had surgery. One had titanium rods put in, and he is much better. The other had a minimally invasive procedure, where they heated up the disk, cut off the bad portion, reformed it, and cooled it down again. He was able to walk off the table and has done well since.
With any procedure, always check your options, and if you can, take the time to go through all your available options before turning to surgery. I still have options available to me, which I will explore, but if they do not work, I will not hesitate to go the minimally invasive route in order to get rid of this pain. The pain is what drives people to accept surgery as an alternative, even if they are outright given a 50/50 chance of getting better. Why? Because the pain is awful, as is collapsing in public from searing pain. If you haven't had severe back pain, I hope you never do. I would do just about anything to rid myself of it.
Pretty stern word for a science we know so very little about. I would rather state that there seems to be a problem that needs to be overcome, and I assume it is neither the first, nor will it be the last.
Remember, there was the large assumption by scientists that the problems that occur when approaching the sound barrier would tear a ship apart when it gets to that speed. This didn't pan out. I think that these are likely just more problems that need to be overcome. Not that I know much about it. Quantum mechanics is NOT my strong suit!
Yes, the powers as stated are broad. The question is, are they unnecessarily so? My guess is that they are, and that this will need to be addressed. However it is also of great importance that something be done, and sooner, rather than later.
The Internet is akin to another border to the US. Attacks on nations and infrastructures across this border are not impossible, as at least two countries have been attacked by cyberwarfare tactics already. Many countries have, or are developing, cyberwarfare divisions and tactics. The damage that can be done by a cyberwarfare first strike is incredible, simply look to what has happened in Estonia as a clue.
Now what authority does the US have over its borders in case of attack? That is right, the government has the right to shut them down and defend them, completely and utterly, in the case of attack. Fortunately we have safeguards in place to make sure that this does not happen unless it is necessary (whether those safeguards are adequate or are being used is another debate). The problem right now is that there appears to be no safeguards adequately in place, mostly because of the nature of this new border.
The fact is, we need to have a division within our government with the authority and duty to limit and protect the flow of information should it become necessary. This is pretty much indisputable. The problem is with oversight and safeguards. We need to develop those, but we also need the protection. No company should be without this capability, even if it is only to pull the plug. Even a freer environment, like a university, should and probably does have this capability. We also need a similar capability to protect the country as a whole.
New territory here. While people do have the right to complain about the possible violation of their rights, we need to move beyond that and find a way to build the safeguards to protect those rights, while still ensuring that our country can take the necessary steps to protect itself.
Strictly speaking, the privacy along the internet is not there, and will not be. Whether it is the government looking at your data, or someone else doesn't really matter in the long run. People need to wake up a bit and realise that their data is NOT safe out there if you are simply going to pass along data that isn't secured BY YOU. Instead of sending postcards along the Internet, try using an envelope. Encryption is not hard to do, and far too few people even bother. In my mind you shouldn't complain if your data is intercepted (by the government or anyone else) if you haven't bothered to protect it. Protect yourselves! Don't simply expect everyone else to simply respect your right to privacy.
Well, this comment didn't come out the exact way I wanted. Blame it on the late hour and the pain killer I just took.
As someone noted, this isn't fool proof, especially as suggested to protect laptops from companies from theft, that they could get locked up, thereby protecting the company. If the idea is to protect the data, then this alone is ineffective, as the hard drive can be removed and read remotely (if some way to bypass the lockdown isn't found first). Not to mention that since the lockdown likely requires Internet access, a potential data thief simply has to NOT connect the laptop to the Internet.
Encryption remains the only viable means of protecting data on devices. It is simple, inexpensive step to take, and yet companies still do not do it. Why would they be looking forward to extra cost added, ineffective features when they don't even use the ones available to them?
Step 1: Policy. Make sure your policies are clear about what can be installed and who may install it.
Step 2: Inventory everything that the company owns properly, and that is licensed to the company. You will likely have to reimage most company computers to come into licensing compliance.
Step 3: Make everyone run as a limited user, unless they have definitive need. This will cut down on pirated software, as well as malware. Anyone who needs admin status should sign an agreement that IT support may be limited to reimaging the computer to its original parameters.
Step 4: Follow through on Policy.
OR
Switch to Linux
I don't think this is so anymore. Cyberwarfare is no small thing. Estonia dropped off the face of the Earth the other year! With Cyberwarfare you can stop command and control, trains, banks, phones, news. You can completely cripple a country'c command and control without firing a single shot.
The DoD needs its own geeks, but they are also going to have to know how to deal with them. Heck, I couldn't enter the armed services from college with the medical conditions I have. I went and got my masters in IA. Would love to offer my services, but there is no way I can be there soldier man,
It really gets me how both sides tend to approach the other as mutually exclusive. Darwinism does noy mean that God does not exist. Nor does belief in God mean that you can not accept the theory of Darwinism. The only exception here is if you take the Bible literally, which is foolish, because that also means you believe in slavery, killing people for simple offenses, and a host of other nonesense that these people don't actually believe in. They take portions of the Bible that are convenient to them and believe it literally, and conveniently forget those that do not agree with their faith.
I hope the Vatican council gets it right, and decrees that there is no conflict between Darwinism and faith. This is what the creationists fear, and by not being invited, they can not exercise their heavy handed practices at the council.
Slashdot Mirror
Umm, ok. You are wrong. Aiming for a stupid and dangerous goal is not the answer, and both sides are guilty of this.
I agree. Copyright reform is necessary. However abandoning copyright altogether is incredibly naive and foolish. If we were to abandon copyright completely (at least in today's society with nothing to replace it) we would be stifling creativity and killing progress of all kinds. I know I would NEVER think of releasing any work I wrote without some form of protection to assure that if I wished, I could profit from that endeavor (unless the work was designed to not be profited from). Why would an author work? By the way, we are not talking, as some have stated, about an hour of work one afternoon. The people who have stated that here are showing incredible ignorance. Any decent (and in many cases, even bad works) work takes a lot of time and hard work to produce. One does not simply sit down and bang out a work in an hour one afternoon. If it were that simple these people would ALL be doing it. Often we are talking about years of work. For instance, the book I am working on is the result of 19 years of experience with computers, years of research, and years of schooling, which have cost me a lot of money. Why would I pay tens of thousands of dollars in education only to produce works that anyone could copy and distribute as their own? The only ones that benefit from an hour of work one afternoon are the copyright violators who are stealing other peoples work. Copyright reform is necessary. The current state of affairs is incredibly out of whack. However people also need to get a sense of perspective, and realize that many of the arguments on the other side are as unrealistic and as stupid as some of the arguments put forward by people who want copyright extended in perpetuity.
As with most arguments in this debate, the logic here is completely flawed. Yes, you can still see the Mona Lisa, but comparing one individual work of old art to an entire generation of artistic works is not logical. You talk about the tv shows of the 30s and 40s, and compare that to ONE work of art that has taken tremendous work to preserve. What you would need to compare is the entire generation of artwork for that period. Indeed, I think you will find that the overwhelming majority of paintings from this period are lost to history forever. This is my problem with every counter copyright argument I have ever heard. The logic simply does not stand. People who argue against movies making 1 million less are talking about some specific instances, and are not taking into account works that make much less money. While I too think that the current state of copyright is messed up, I also think that getting rid of copyright is as stupid as stupid gets. The plain fact is that you WILL stifle creativity and the flow of information, and I have yet to see a good, logical argument that proves otherwise.
Not 100% sure about Fortran, but I do know there is good value to learning older languages. Take COBOL for instance. Anything you can do in COBOL can be done in more modern languages. The problem is that there is a LOT of COBOL out there. It works, and businesses have found that projects transferring all their old programs to newer languages ultimately fail more often than they succeed. It is much better for them to find a COBOL programmer than translate everything to a newer language.
I'll do it, no problems.
It also opens up another avenue MS has wanted to go down, and that is yearly fees. They would rather have you buy the OS and then pay a fee every year for the right to use it. This patent will go a long way towards that goal. Sure, it is a crappy goal, and will hurt them and help systems like Linux, but MS will do what MS wants.
Hey, I have a student who takes advantage of this phenomenon. He goes to the recycling center once a month and grabs computers that people have thrown out. He can then often just swap out the bad part and he has a computer he can sell or use!
I read until I hit the part about Linux having a bad setup for security, laughed, and stopped reading. That was enough to let me know that this guy is clearly an idiot. Doesn't he realize that the reason so many people run into security problems in Xp is because they run as admin? No viruses for Linux ONLY because of its low popularity? Umm, it is the number one web server, and it still maintains a good security reputation. It is the number one embedded OS, and it still maintains a good security reputation. It is run by companies like Google and Yahoo, and still maintains a good security rep. Trust me, I should know. Linux is much more secure than Windows. Windows Vista is the only version of Windows that is reasonably secure, until you turn off the annoying warnings.
Your attitude is part of the problem. You justify breaking the law with a bunch of bull. It doesn't MATTER when the book was written, nor, would I doubt you would care if it was released yesterday, you would just come up with another excuse to legitimize a crime. The fact is, he put his hard work into the book. He deserves to get paid by people who want it if that is what he desires. You don't want to pay? Simple, don't read the book! What you are saying is like saying you have the right to take stuff from a warehouse simply because the stuff has been there for ten years. While I agree that copyright laws need to be reformed, I also agree that the author has the right to be paid, and the fact that you don't like the current law isn't an excuse to break it! Hey, if you think the information on this subject must be free, put YOUR hard work into it, write a book, and distribute it for free. If we take your attitude towards authored works, we will greatly diminish the works available to us because authors and artists will no longer wish to put their hard work into a form we can readily obtain. In short, your actions hurt us all, just because you need to make excuses and resort to criminal behavior rather than pay a modest sum to gain the knowledge. I am currently working on a book. I want to be paid for it. It isn't easy writing a book (a good one at least), but I doubt you would know about that.
I thought by now we would have integration of TV and computer. They are very slow to change. The programming doesn't suck. There is a lot of good stuff out there, and a HUGE variety. However the television companies are very hesitant to change. We have tons of bandwidth going to waste. There should be some form of integration of TV and internet. Why Comcast doesn't fully invest in things like Fancast, or create a similar site that collects TV and streams it, and gets the bandwidth out there to deliver it is beyond me. Comcast could KILL its competitors by combining the TV and Internet. Combine the two biggest time wasters into one convenient device. Turn your cable box into an entertainment computer.
Don't be so quick to blame the Unions, or the administrators. I can think of two reasons why it is so hard. I am an adjunct teacher at a community college. I really WANT to teach full time, but it is hard getting a job, especially with the budget cuts, but I see bad teachers all over the country as well. The first reason is that the pay is crap, so who wants to teach? Most positions demand a Masters at least. I can make a lot more money in the government or private sector, twice as much in fact. The only reason to teach is because you WANT to. Most people today will choose the money. The second reason is tenure. A school has only a few years to figure out if the teacher is any good and they can get rid of them. Now I like tenure, as it does provide teachers freedom from political and other agendas from interfering with their jobs, but if you get a bad teacher in there, they become very hard to remove if they just give up. And there IS burn out in jobs like this. Many teachers simply give up trying to teach students they perceive as not really caring, and especially in high schools they get a lot of pressure to just pass kids so the school doesn't look bad and lose funding. I think if we would change our attitudes about schools and how we judge them, and paid teachers decent salaries, we will get better people in the field. Make it a place where people WANT to go, instead of a place where people have to decide between a love of teaching, and making a decent living.
Speaking as a member of a family who could be devastated by flu (two of us could easily be killed by flu and resulting pneumonia), I am pretty worried. The United States keeps saying "Be concerned, but don't panic." They say it isn't prudent to close borders, schools, etc. To my thinking, isn't this a case of money trumping safety? Sure, there aren't a heck of a lot of cases yet, but I would think the prudent thing to do would be to isolate as many cases as possible, and try to keep this from spreading with every resource at our disposal! Yes, that means border closings. Get our citizens who want to come home back, but place them in isolation until we know they are not carrying. When a case is reported in or near your community, close schools and any non vital business. Tell people to not travel anywhere that isn't necessary. Place sanitiser anywhere in public where multiple people are touching stuff. Distribute medical gloves and masks. Some would say this is overreaction, but it is really the only way to stop this from becoming a pandemic. Serious issue, and we need to treat it as such, and not put the economy above the health of citizens. In Mexico it is hitting healthy people hard, and this should be a major concern. It is quite like the behavior of the last pandemic, although it isn't spreading as quickly. We should be taking every step to stop this now before it gets so large that we can't stop it, or is this a case where we really can't stop it, so we aren't bothering? I know, I am paranoid, but facing a pandemic flu is a very scary proposition for me and my family.
Those in security know that security is a balancing act. Increase security, and you decrease usability as well as increase the annoyance factor. Increase it too high, and users tend to bypass or disable security. Increase usability and decrease the annoyances and you decrease security. Vista is indeed a pretty secure Operating System, when used properly. Unfortunately that same security also tends to be pretty annoying. The constant pop ups lead the vast majority of people to either start clicking without thinking, or leads them to turn off security features. Many of the students I teach that use Vista (and these are a very small percentage - Vista still hasn't caught on with the digital natives) have turned off many of the security features Vista offers. So while Vista is indeed a fairly secure platform in theory, in practice it isn't, because the users disable the security. More secure than Linux? I can't say that, because I just don't know for sure. However, in the real world it isn't because of what users do to the system. Kind of like the Linux user who always runs as root. I applaud MS for their attempt at making their operating systems more secure. I hope they aren't deluding themselves into thinking that they haven't made some serious mistakes as well. Right now if you have a security problem they can ask you if you have disabled features, and when the user says they have, MS can wash their hands of the situation. That is not true security. A good first step, but it definitely needs improvement. They still need to find the correct balance between usability and security.
The more they stay the same. Is it any wonder people do not trust their government anymore? Who is left inside government willing to fight for our rights? The answer appears to be: No one.
The problem is that MS continued to require bigger and badder hardware to run its new Operating SYstems. This worked well when the apps people used continued to require better hardware as well, but this is no longer the case. With so much done on the web now, and with apps not keeping pace with 64 BIT OS and multiple cores, people do not NEED better hardware in order to do their work, unless they are avid gamers. Throw in a weak economy and you spell doom for an OS that requires better hardware. No one wants to upgrade their computer just to upgrade the OS, which does nothing for them. MS took a step in the right direction with seven, as it states that it will run just as fine as Vista on the same hardware. Unfortunately the damage is already done. The computing world is stuck at XP, and don't need better hardware than that which will run XP fast and efficiently. Vista crawls on most of these systems, as seven will also likely do. MS needs to take a good hard look at what Linux does very well, and that is run on older hardware as well as the newer stuff. Lets stop throwing away perfectly good PCs and creating tons of EWaste just because MS says we need to have their new OS, which simply will not run well on your current machine. In the new world, where money is tight, and people are more conscious of waste, MS fails to recognise the shifting winds.
Since you are talking health care, you also need to be in compliance. That requires not only logging, but encryption. While I can not make specific recommendations (I believe there are some good ones here) I would make sure that you can make encryption an integral part of this system. That would help make sure you are in compliance without having to add extra steps later in the process. Just food for thought. Most of the open source alternatives you get should be able to work nicely with PgP. Since you want the system to be closed, I would recommend setting up and using your own key server.
Well, it really depends on the condition, doesn't it? I am pretty familiar with back pain, having one herniated and one blown disk in my back. This is extremely painful. I know that some procedures, for certain types of back pain, is just as likely to not help as it is to help and can sometimes make it worse. However this is not always the case. Some procedures for certain conditions are showing to be VERY effective for those patients that can not get relief otherwise. That said, back surgery should be a last resort after trying the other remedies. Many back problems go away on their own, or with proper exercise, or medical treatment. However, sometimes it does not. There are quite a few different types of surgery you can get, and some surgeons clearly seem to have a much better success rate than others. Minimally invasive surgeries also seem to, at the very least, decrease the risks of making things worse. I have two friends who had long term back pain, and who eventually had surgery. One had titanium rods put in, and he is much better. The other had a minimally invasive procedure, where they heated up the disk, cut off the bad portion, reformed it, and cooled it down again. He was able to walk off the table and has done well since. With any procedure, always check your options, and if you can, take the time to go through all your available options before turning to surgery. I still have options available to me, which I will explore, but if they do not work, I will not hesitate to go the minimally invasive route in order to get rid of this pain. The pain is what drives people to accept surgery as an alternative, even if they are outright given a 50/50 chance of getting better. Why? Because the pain is awful, as is collapsing in public from searing pain. If you haven't had severe back pain, I hope you never do. I would do just about anything to rid myself of it.
Pretty stern word for a science we know so very little about. I would rather state that there seems to be a problem that needs to be overcome, and I assume it is neither the first, nor will it be the last. Remember, there was the large assumption by scientists that the problems that occur when approaching the sound barrier would tear a ship apart when it gets to that speed. This didn't pan out. I think that these are likely just more problems that need to be overcome. Not that I know much about it. Quantum mechanics is NOT my strong suit!
Yes, the powers as stated are broad. The question is, are they unnecessarily so? My guess is that they are, and that this will need to be addressed. However it is also of great importance that something be done, and sooner, rather than later. The Internet is akin to another border to the US. Attacks on nations and infrastructures across this border are not impossible, as at least two countries have been attacked by cyberwarfare tactics already. Many countries have, or are developing, cyberwarfare divisions and tactics. The damage that can be done by a cyberwarfare first strike is incredible, simply look to what has happened in Estonia as a clue. Now what authority does the US have over its borders in case of attack? That is right, the government has the right to shut them down and defend them, completely and utterly, in the case of attack. Fortunately we have safeguards in place to make sure that this does not happen unless it is necessary (whether those safeguards are adequate or are being used is another debate). The problem right now is that there appears to be no safeguards adequately in place, mostly because of the nature of this new border. The fact is, we need to have a division within our government with the authority and duty to limit and protect the flow of information should it become necessary. This is pretty much indisputable. The problem is with oversight and safeguards. We need to develop those, but we also need the protection. No company should be without this capability, even if it is only to pull the plug. Even a freer environment, like a university, should and probably does have this capability. We also need a similar capability to protect the country as a whole. New territory here. While people do have the right to complain about the possible violation of their rights, we need to move beyond that and find a way to build the safeguards to protect those rights, while still ensuring that our country can take the necessary steps to protect itself. Strictly speaking, the privacy along the internet is not there, and will not be. Whether it is the government looking at your data, or someone else doesn't really matter in the long run. People need to wake up a bit and realise that their data is NOT safe out there if you are simply going to pass along data that isn't secured BY YOU. Instead of sending postcards along the Internet, try using an envelope. Encryption is not hard to do, and far too few people even bother. In my mind you shouldn't complain if your data is intercepted (by the government or anyone else) if you haven't bothered to protect it. Protect yourselves! Don't simply expect everyone else to simply respect your right to privacy. Well, this comment didn't come out the exact way I wanted. Blame it on the late hour and the pain killer I just took.
Personally, I think Serenity is the best name. Would be good to keep that name alive. I like the idea of naming the toilet Colbert though!
As someone noted, this isn't fool proof, especially as suggested to protect laptops from companies from theft, that they could get locked up, thereby protecting the company. If the idea is to protect the data, then this alone is ineffective, as the hard drive can be removed and read remotely (if some way to bypass the lockdown isn't found first). Not to mention that since the lockdown likely requires Internet access, a potential data thief simply has to NOT connect the laptop to the Internet. Encryption remains the only viable means of protecting data on devices. It is simple, inexpensive step to take, and yet companies still do not do it. Why would they be looking forward to extra cost added, ineffective features when they don't even use the ones available to them?
Step 1: Policy. Make sure your policies are clear about what can be installed and who may install it. Step 2: Inventory everything that the company owns properly, and that is licensed to the company. You will likely have to reimage most company computers to come into licensing compliance. Step 3: Make everyone run as a limited user, unless they have definitive need. This will cut down on pirated software, as well as malware. Anyone who needs admin status should sign an agreement that IT support may be limited to reimaging the computer to its original parameters. Step 4: Follow through on Policy. OR Switch to Linux
I don't think this is so anymore. Cyberwarfare is no small thing. Estonia dropped off the face of the Earth the other year! With Cyberwarfare you can stop command and control, trains, banks, phones, news. You can completely cripple a country'c command and control without firing a single shot. The DoD needs its own geeks, but they are also going to have to know how to deal with them. Heck, I couldn't enter the armed services from college with the medical conditions I have. I went and got my masters in IA. Would love to offer my services, but there is no way I can be there soldier man,
It really gets me how both sides tend to approach the other as mutually exclusive. Darwinism does noy mean that God does not exist. Nor does belief in God mean that you can not accept the theory of Darwinism. The only exception here is if you take the Bible literally, which is foolish, because that also means you believe in slavery, killing people for simple offenses, and a host of other nonesense that these people don't actually believe in. They take portions of the Bible that are convenient to them and believe it literally, and conveniently forget those that do not agree with their faith. I hope the Vatican council gets it right, and decrees that there is no conflict between Darwinism and faith. This is what the creationists fear, and by not being invited, they can not exercise their heavy handed practices at the council.
You DO know who Bruce Perens is, don't you? I would say his perspective is relevant.